ided minds, have formed their theories in regard to
Him? It is the very abundance of the strange speculations with regard to
Christ, it is the very strangeness of the theories that have been formed
with regard to Him, that has shown me how He has drawn the hearts of
men, how He has not let them go, but compelled them to fasten themselves
to Him, to think about Him and try to follow Him in such poor, blind
ways as they were able to give themselves to Him in. This, then, is the
Christian faith. This is the way in which the larger life opens before
mankind, by the following of a person, by the giving of the life into
the dominion and the guidance and the obedience of one who goes forward
into that life, himself thoroughly believing in it--for Jesus believed
in it with all His human soul.
But then, we ask ourselves, is it possible that we can gather from such
a life as Jesus lived so long ago, a life that was lived back in the
very dust of history and that has come down to us in records which seem
sometimes to be flecked with tradition and obscured with the distance in
which they lived, is it possible that I should get from him a guidance
of my daily life here? Am I, a man of the nineteenth century, when
everything has changed, in Boston, in this modern civilization,--can
Jesus really be my teacher, my guide, in the actual duties and
perplexities of my daily life and lead me into the larger land in which
I know he lives? Ah! the man knows very little about the everlasting
identity of human nature, little of how the world in all these
changeless ages is the same, who asks that; very little, also, of how in
every largest truth there are all particulars and details of human life
involved; little of how everything that a man is to-day, upon every
moment, rests upon some eternal foundation and may be within the power
of some everlasting law. The wonder of the life of Jesus is this--and
you will find it so and you have found it so if you have ever taken your
New Testament and tried to make it the rule of your daily life--that
there is not a single action that you are called upon to do of which you
need be, of which you will be, in any serious doubt for ten minutes as
to what Jesus Christ, if He were here, Jesus Christ being here, would
have you do under those circumstances and with the material upon which
you are called to act. Men have tried to go back and imitate the very
activities of the life of Jesus Christ, to do the very t
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